Daughters Who Walk This Path - Softcover

Kilanko, Yejide

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143186205 ISBN 13: 9780143186205

Publisher: Penguin Group USA, 2013

Synopsis

Spirited and intelligent, Morayo grows up surrounded by school friends and family in busy, modern-day Ibadan, Nigeria. An adoring little sister, their traditional parents, and a host of aunties and cousins make Morayo’s home their own. So there’s nothing unusual about her charming but troubled cousin Bros T moving in with the family. At first Morayo and her sister are delighted, but in her innocence, nothing prepares Morayo for the shameful secret Bros T forces upon her.

Thrust into a web of oppressive silence woven by the adults around her, Morayo must learn to fiercely protect herself and her sister from a legacy of silence many women in Morayo’s family share. Only Aunty Morenike—once shielded by her own mother— provides Morayo with a safe home and a sense of female community that sustains her as she grows into a young woman in bustling, politically charged, often violent Nigeria.

About this title

About the Author:

Yejide Kilanko was born in Ibadan and attended the Universities of Victoria and Windsor. She has worked as a child protection worker and is now a social worker in children’s mental health. Kilanko lives in Chatham, Ontario, with her husband and children. Daughters Who Walk This Path is her first novel.

From Booklist:

Growing up in Ibadan, Nigeria, in the 1980s, Morayo has an idyllic childhood playing with her beloved younger sister, Eniayo, and falling in love with a thoughtful schoolmate, Kachi. But Morayo’s life is turned upside down when her cousin, the surly and manipulative Bros T, slips into her room one night and assaults her. The attacks continue until Morayo, fearing Eniayo will suffer the same fate, tells her parents what Bros T has done to her. Bros T is sent away, but no one in Morayo’s family will speak to her about her ordeal, until her aunt Morenike, who was also raped as a teenager, takes Morayo under her wing and offers her niece an outlet for her pain and anger. Morayo earns a place at the University of Lagos, but her many dalliances with boys at school garner her an unwanted reputation. When Kachi unexpectedly comes back into her life, Morayo can’t envision a future for them. Kilanko’s debut is a powerful and completely involving bildungsroman that peels back the layers of women’s lives in modern-day Nigeria. --Kristine Huntley

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Group USA
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0143186205
• ISBN 13: 9780143186205
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 360